Surviving on bags of nuts, baby wipes

AZ-ZUBAYR, Iraq — The rocket-propelled grenade flashed into the compound just before dark, exploding at a distance away with a tremendous boom.

We grabbed our helmets and hit the ground, tight against a building for cover. All around us, British soldiers guarding an old Iraqi military base ran to their armored vehicles, leapt in and roared in the direction of the explosion.

In seconds, the air shook with heavy blasts as the soldiers opened fire with cannons and heavy machine guns in the direction of the enemy grenade. One of the last of the armored fighting vehicles stopped opposite us and threw open the back hatch.

For the next 10 minutes we sat silently, listening to the barrage outside. Then there was silence. A British soldier sharing the space with us passed back a bag of mints and smiled at the hard set of our faces. We waited, listening intently. The vehicle rolled forward, then backward, commands barked over the audio system.

Finally the tracks stopped moving and the commander's voice broke in.

"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for flying Black Watch airlines with us today," he said, laughing as we climbed out. "We apologize for the turbulence during your flight."

Covering the war in southern Iraq is not for the faint of heart or the fastidious.

A week into the coalition invasion, most of the reporters operating in the region have witnessed firefights or mortars fired at Iraqi crowds.

Nights are spent sleeping fitfully in the seats of cars with body armor on or, on calmer nights, in sleeping bags on the ground, with tanks roaring by and bomb blasts shattering the night air in the distance.

This is not a war covered in forays from the Hilton, with a bath and hot meal waiting at the end of the day. We are surviving on bags of nuts and baby wipe showers.

At the front lines, media embedded with the troops have been hit with daylong sandstorms so vicious they can't see a foot in front of them -- and that's inside an armored vehicle. When rain comes it turns the dust to a gooey mud and soaks clothing. Then, when the sun goes down, the temperature plunges. For many journalists in the field, the toughest hours come after dark, when reporters normally sit down to write their reports. In war conditions, any light can attract enemy fire so reporters work with a scarf thrown over their heads and computers, squinting in the dark. Lights in cars must be taped over, and everyone has learned to drive at night -- sometimes following only the vague shadow of the car ahead -- without using their brakes.

Most have abandoned their SUVs and are now riding with the military, which runs on diesel, or pooling what little fuel remains. Food and fresh water are equally difficult to find.

Things could be worse, of course. The 150-degree temperatures of summer haven't arrived yet, nor have the malarial mosquitoes reported to lurk around Basra.

For all the panicked donning of gas masks when Iraqi missiles are fired, no chemical weapons have turned up yet. That's one story we're happy not to cover.